This story is split between episodes being posted on the second Monday of every month. You can find the first episode here and the previous episode here.
Of Dice and Glen Episode 3: Mimicked Messages
On closer inspection, there were obvious shadows behind the two trees from which the mocking voices had come.
Following his gaze, her black eyes caught the ominous shadows and mimicked him in arming herself. Dagger in one hand, scimitar in the other she gave a quick sniff of the air.
“What are they?” she hissed, tail lashing nervously around her feet. An obvious threat, such as a great ettin stamping through her forest was one thing. She could and would deal with that. Mysterious and formless shadows with the power to mimic humanoid voices perfectly gave her qualms she could not shake.
“I couldn’t tell you without seeing them,” Shaddar said to her, then called in the direction of the trees. “Come out where we can see you!”
The memory came to Luna of creatures she’d seen before, around the woods. They looked like people-sized birds, only they had no wings. Instead, they had arms and wore ragged clothes. They didn’t really speak, but they communicated through mimicking sounds they heard around them. Kenku, she thought they were called.
“A moment...” she said, slowly. “Tall as us, sound just like us... I know! Kenku!”
As she said it, the two birdlike creatures stepped out from behind their trees.
One of them, holding a short sword, bobbed its head saying, in Luna’s voice, “Kenku! Kenku!”
The other, holding a shortbow, then started making an odd clinking sound, as if coins were bumping together in a pouch.
“Kenku…?” Shaddar said, frowning. “I’m not familiar with them. What’s that odd sound it’s making?”
“You’re about to be as familiar with them as you ever want to be,” she replied, not once taking her eyes from the foe, now exposed to greater scrutiny. “They’re greedy things. We could throw all the gold we have at them and they’d still attack, looking for more. They’re fast, pretty clever for birdbrains, but we can take them.”
Now both of the Kenkus were making the clinking sounds, becoming more insistent the moment Luna mentioned gold.
“So, they’re asking for our money right now?” Shaddar asked.
“Oops,” she muttered. “Yes. Though even giving it to them wouldn’t stop them. They’re evil. Let’s just rid the forest of their ugly filth and move on.”
“Hold on,” Shaddar said, then turned his attention to the Kenkus. “We don’t have anything of value.”
Two sets of beady eyes watched the dragonborn lie. The first creature, entirely taken in by the bluff, turned its beak away in disgust.
“Anything of value,” it repeated, again imitating Shaddar to perfection.
The bow-bearing kenku stared longer at the ranger, before also glancing at its companion, regretfully.
“We don’t have anything,” it too, mimicked.
Watching the exchange, Luna bounced impatiently from one foot to the other. Every instinct was telling her to rush in and take both the bird heads off, in one stroke. It wouldn’t be that simple, however, and this encounter could be over swiftly, them back on the trail for the real villains.
She gave a soft whining noise, as of a canine creature in mild distress.
Fine, she thought, you feather-brains escape this time...
“That’s right,” Shaddar said. “So you may as well be on your way.”
The kenku with the sword cocked its head to the side, looking at its companion, and made a sound like an arrow flying through the air, then imitated Luna’s whine.
The second one considered for a moment, sizing up the opposition. At last, it shook its head and turned away, saying, “Don’t have anything.”
Bobbing their heads, the two kenku headed off into the woods.
Shaddar sighed in relief. “That was close. It has slowed us down, though.”
He watched the sun sinking in the sky.
“We can go a bit further, but we’ll need to make camp soon. We can pick up our goblin’s trail in the morning.”
“Nay, noblest of dragony descent!” she proclaimed, standing tall, dagger-wielding hand planted proudly on a hip. “Fourth we shall tarry, through dusk, twilight and blackest eve! Rest is for heroes! Not sluggards, lazing about on soft moss-beds!”
Shaddar turned his head to the side. “Can you track something at night?”
Holding up a finger importantly and opening her mouth grandiosely, Luna entirely ran out of ideas.
“Very well,” she said, eventually. “But I only allow you this because I’m starved. What’s for supper?”
Grinning and not waiting for a reply, she stowed her scimitar and began a small hunt for their evening meal.
“Whatever we can find!” Shaddar laughed, watching the tiefling run off. She was unlike any person he’d ever met. He didn’t really like people, but she wasn’t half bad. Almost like an animal.
While Luna was away, Shaddar made camp, setting up a small fire and laying out his bedroll.
The unlikely druid returned in very short order carrying a half dozen squirrels by their scrawny necks. Her expression was grim, despite her imagined success however.
“Good catch!” he congratulated, seeing the squirrels. “We’ll probably even have some left for tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” was all she replied as she set about preparing the tiny bodies and roasting them.
Not a single word was spoken by the tiefling during this labour and her fawn-coloured features did not lift at all. Once the tiny woodland creatures were cooking, she sat back, watching the fire morosely and scratching idly in the grass and dirt with her dagger. She looked, for all the world, like a petulant devil child, put in the corner for a time-out.
“You don’t like killing to eat,” Shaddar observed. “I admit, I’ve felt the same at times. It is the natural order, though. I find that thanking their spirits for the sacrifice of their flesh makes me feel… better about it. It makes me feel at peace in a way that makes me think they understand and bear me no ill.”
The horned head rose slowly, an odd expression in the black eyes. Luna’s head tilted to one side as she considered him. Though she did not smile, the burden did seem lighter.
“You do that, too?” she almost whispered, shifting onto her hands to move ever-so-slightly nearer to him. “I... saw a cleric do it, once, in my forest. He was a human, but caring to all my friends. He had to eat, like we all do, but when he had taken down his prey, he bent on one knee and spoke a word I didn’t know. But I understood his meaning perfectly fine. He was thanking the beast for the gift of its life and its energy.”
Her gaze moved back to the fire and the small bodies above it.
“That ritual did make me feel better about... What I had to do. It’s simply that now, when my friends are being hurt and killed... I just hate adding to that toll. Whatever thanks I offer up to their spirits.”
“They understand even more now,” Shaddar assured her. “For you hunt those that harm them and their kind without remorse. By taking their lives to sustain yourself, you are helping to better the lives of all those in the forest.”
Luna listened to him intently, her black eyes wide. She drank in every word and even smiled slightly. Then she nodded and the spell seemed to break. Abruptly, she drew back from him, again, and sat, a little further away, staring into the fire.
“My thanks, dragonborn,” she murmured, despite the sudden change in her demeanor.
Shaddar nodded and smiled at her.
Once the rodents were roasted to perfection, she distributed the largest three to him and, clutching the remaining three in her mouth, held fast by her dangerously pointed incisors, she scrambled, with some difficulty, up and into a low-branched tree. There she stayed, first eating and carefully collecting the tiny bones. Then, holding the pile of food scraps in one hand, she spoke an incantation and flames erupted from her palm. The scraps were incinerated in a very short time. She brushed the ash off her limb and settled down in a convenient tree-elbow, to sleep.
Eating two of the squirrels now, Shaddar carefully removed and packed the flesh from the third. He then carefully dug a hole and buried all the inedible parts. Seeing that Luna was already settling down to sleep, the white dragonborn carefully doused the fire and spread the ashes in a circle around their camp to ward off predators. Then he lay down on his bedroll to go to sleep.Discover what happens next in Episode 4: Approaching the Quarry
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